x
anna_britbass88 10 December 2011

hello all ~

ready to purchase / upgrade to get back into recording :)

here's my current lot:

SYSTEM:
15" MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
ASUS VE258Q 25-Inch Monitor
10.6.8 Snow Leopard
4GB memory
160GB HD Serial ATA - 5400 rpm
Seagate FreeAgent Desktop 250 GB 3.5" USB 2.0 External Hard Drive 7200 rpm
______________________________
SOFTWARE:
Logic Pro 8.0.2
Reason 4.0.1
BFD 1.5
Line 6 GearBox
______________________________
I/O:
Line 6 UX2 (24bit / 44.1k)
dbx Mini-Tube Pre
RODE NT-1A
______________________________
MIDI:
M-Audio Midisport Uno
Miditech Midistudio Keyboard
Yamaha DD55 7 Pad Digital Drum System (for BFD)
Roland PK-5
_____________________________
MONITORING:
AKG-240 Headphones
_____________________________
ANALOGUE INSTRUMENTS:
78' Fender Jazz Bass
Pawn Shop Warmoth 60's Style Frankenstrat
____________________________

Goal: Get clean takes w/ample headroom, 16-24 tracks, use MIDI drums like BFD - perfect final mix in a professional studio / then master - if things take off reinvest in better gear.

Typically I'd be recording as follows:

*one track @ a time*

- 24bit / 44.1k
- 2-3 Vocal Tracks
- 2-3 Guitar Tracks
- 1 Bass Track
- 4-6 Software Instruments
- 10-12 Tracks Multi-Out BFD / SSD drums (or similar) via a MIDI / Roland V-Kit
- 3-4 internal or 3rd Party Plug In's per channel and Master Out.
- Various amounts of automation (volume / effects)

*granted the main goal is clean tracks w/ample headroom - I can mix and load up on plugins via a professional studio.

So roughly 24 tracks on a MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo w/4GB or RAM through a (sigh) Line 6 UX2.

Note: I'm fine with freezing tracks and work arounds, I just want to know if my first investment should be a Mac Pro Quad Core or something, which would eat up my $2500 in starter funds - but I'd have a solid foundation.

...or is my machine / setup good enough for say another 18 months of recording / transferring to a pro studio?

Topic Tags

Comments

TheJackAttack Sat, 12/10/2011 - 21:30

Your Seagate Freeagent is known to have horrendous read/write speeds. I pretty much only use Seagate bare drives in Glyph enclosures or home built enclosures but the FreeAgent bridge board is heinous. When properly tweaked your Core2Duo Mac will be sufficient for starting out but if you like lots of plugins and VSTi's then you will want something with more ram capacity than what you have. Logic is perfectly adequate. Your Line 6 is a starter but not where you want to be ultimately.

anna_britbass88 Sun, 12/11/2011 - 08:05

thanks for jumping in!

looks like more horsepower is the best course of action - been researching... looks like on Logic Pro Help / Gear Sluts the Mac Mini Server is a robust choice for those of us w/limited budgets. Again for me I'm a one track @ a time gal - my drums are strictly BFD 2.0 or NI Abbey Road.

  • 2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
  • RME Babyface / Logic 9 / Reason 6 / BFD 2.0
  • 4GB memory (will upgrade to 8GB - there is a 16GB kit as well)
  • Dual 500GB 7200-rpm hard drives1 (will swap one for a SSD eventually)
  • 1TB External FW800/400 HD
  • Intel HD Graphics 3000
  • OS X Lion Server
  • OS X Lion

class="xf-ul">
The thread @ Gear Sluts is pretty long - lots of info but start from my link to see the most recent developments.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/631884-new-mac-mini-i7-2011-a-9.html

and thank you again! thumb

TheJackAttack Sun, 12/11/2011 - 12:14

All programs go on main hard drive. Record your projects to second internal drive. When finished transfer to external.

Scenario two: all programs on main drive. All samples or instrument libraries on second internal drive. Record audio to Glyph. Transfer finished projects to generic but quality storage external drive.

I am a user of Audition CS5.5 and it is a very fine DAW.

x

User login